Coppa, 64-43 in his career, led Cañon City to a dazzling 10-0 regular season that resulted in the top overall seed in the Class 3A playoffs. But his Tigers were stunned in the first round by No. 16 Frederick, 7-6. Frederick went on to top D’Evelyn and reach the semifinals before losing to eventual champion Windsor.

“Things in all of our lives change,” Coppa told the Cañon City Daily Record. “I’ve had some things that have changed over the course of the last year or two, and I need to be able to have a little more time to be able to address those things.

“As I told the kids (Wednesday), my family has been very supportive of me pursuing my dream to be the head coach here at Cañon City High School. I’ve had the opportunity to do that, and now it’s time to give back to my family a little bit more.”

Cañon City will jump from 3A to 4A in the next two-year cycle, which begins next season.

“It’s a tough act to follow, the previous two head coaches were pretty good,” O’Rourke told the paper. “Coach (Lee) Hitchcock was an all-state inductee for coaching and Coach Coppa has had a wonderfully successful tenure as head coach.”

Commitments to pass along:

Douglas County quarterback Aaron Rosipajla to CSU-Pueblo.

Silver Creek receiver Ryan Rankin to Nebraska-Kearney.

Arapahoe quarterback Alec Gieser to Colorado School of Mines.

Cherokee Trail lineman Mictchell Vashon to the University of Chicago.

Liberty tight end Jake Vieux to Western State.

Other big-ticket items out of the legislative council meeting yesterday:

5A football, as we reported yesterday, will move to a seeding committee. The 32 teams that qualify will still be determined by the wild card formula.

Private schools will be required to provide financial aid info, comparing the percentages received by athletes to the overall student body.

In order to apply to play down, a school need only have a .250 winning percentage. The previous mark was .200.

CHSAA will serve as the go-between for all TV negotiations during the regular season.

In baseball, the 1A semifinals and final will be played on the same day. 2A will move to the same playoff dates as 3A-5A, and have a seeded bracket. 4A and 5A reduced automatic qualifiers, and will now have more wild card teams.

Big changes in volleyball: 3A-5A districts are gone, and the regular season was extended from 19 matches to 23. Also, the state tournament fields for those classes will grow from eight teams to 12.

4A and 5A softball’s regional sites will be selected by the top eight seeds. 3A reduced the number of regional qualifiers to 24 teams, and state qualifiers to 12. They’ll also use the MaxPreps Freeman Ranking System to help seed the brackets.

Short stuff:

The demand to see Missy Franklin swim this weekend is so high that Regis Jesuit will stream the dual meet with Cherry Creek on its network, RJ Live. They’ll also simulcast the broadcast in the Boys Division library for any overflow crowd.

Participants from the Colorado High School Cycling League were horned at the National Interscholastic Cycle Association Awards last Saturday. Boulder’s Dominique Fenichell was named a Trek All-Star Athlete.

A Colorado club baseball team has openings for a team that will travel to Italy this July. They’re looking for 16-17 year old kids. For more info, email gunzbaseball@yahoo.com.

Cherry Creek TE/LB Christian Rebhun has picked up some interest from Colorado State. He’s been offered by Northern Colorado, and has a visit with New Mexico this weekend.

Valor Christian defensive lineman Michael Mann says Colorado State is in the lead for securing his signature on signing day. Also of note: he won’t be taking an official visit to Boise State. Also in his top three are Duke (teammate Max McCaffrey is a commit) and UCLA.

Neil Devlin, originally from the Philadelphia area, has covered high school sports in Colorado for more than 30 years, writing about the people, athletes and events that encompass the Rocky Mountain prep sports world.